


Like Hurts

by KilLinggames



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Human Disaster Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:55:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21961315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilLinggames/pseuds/KilLinggames
Summary: Matt pays tribute to Elektra's memory on Christmas Eve in the only way he knows she'd appreciate; by letting out the darkness in him that she understood and loved so much. Blood and violence; a willing and unwilling sacrifice to the woman who was the Black Sky--who was the Devil's heart.Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of the birth of a God that he doesn't always believe in anymore; but tonight, it's the Devil's turn to play.Matt didn't expect to meet someone in the middle of his rampage who might just share his particular form of holiday spirit.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios
Kudos: 16





	Like Hurts

He went to mass today, to celebrate the birth of a God that he’s not always sure he believes in anymore. They held candles as the congregation sang about the _holy night_ , and Matt can feel the heat from them even though he can’t see them. He’s heard that it was beautiful. 

He let the sound of the organs fill his being. It hurts a little bit, as loud as it is. But that’s okay, it drowns out the sounds of pain coming from outside. Everybody gets busy during the holidays, and the lowlifes of the city are no exception.

He’s the first out the door when the service ends, most of the rest of the congregation sticking around a bit longer to chat with their friends or talk to the priest. Another cane is sacrificed to New York’s alleyways as he decides to take his favourite shortcut—rooftops. It’s better than letting people gawk at a blind man running like the devil was on his heels (ha.)

Just a few moments out the door, and he can already hear a woman being robbed a block away, a homeless man being beaten up by 3-4 guys two blocks away in the other direction, and some drunk guys fighting next to his apartment. Matt runs and jumps through the city even faster, wishing all the while that he’d had the foresight to bring his suit with him to church. He hopes the homeless man will make it.

Foggy invited him to celebrate the holidays with his family. He’s gone the last couple of years. But this year, even the thought of sitting around (pretending to be) happy with food and songs and sweets makes him clench his fists and the urge to hurt something intensify. That _life._ It’s not for him. _His_ job is to ensure that Foggy and others like him have the chance at that happiness, even as he resents them for it.

It takes him only a few minutes to get to his apartment and change into his black suit. Still, the woman’s purse is long gone and the homeless man is unconscious after being knocked on the head one too many times. At least the drunks have knocked each other out though, so that’s one less thing to worry about.

He rushes out the rooftop access, finding the right spot, bounces off a wall, a fire escape railing, and a balcony before landing right behind one of the guys still kicking at the unconscious man. There were only three of them after all, not four like he’d suspected.

One of them is standing on the sidelines, egging the other two on, urging them to kill. He’s the one that spots the Devil first, letting out a shriek before backing away.

The guy Matt landed behind tries to turn around but he takes the guy in a chokehold at the same time as he swipes out his legs. The man scratches at his arms, but Matt doesn't mind the pain.

Suddenly, they’re both tackled to the floor. The second guy has stopped paying attention to the unconscious man. It felt like a bulldozer hitting the side of his ribs. This guy was _big._ Matt lets go of the smaller man and punches _bulldozer_ on the side of the head. Once, twice, before the guy gets up and returns a punch that Matt blocks with his forearms.

Untangling himself from _tiny_ while defending himself from bulldozer wasn’t easy. But he does it, using tiny’s face as leverage on his knee to get up. _First blood_ he thinks ferally, as he hears a shriek from the ground and the crunch of bone. The air tastes of copper, and a thrill travels up his spine.

 _This is what living feels like._ He hears a voice beside him say; a ghost of a hand on his cheek.

He rushes bulldozer with a war cry, his blood singing with a sort of dark joy. The itch he felt under his skin all day, finally scratched.

His face must have proclaimed his madness, for the guy doesn’t even try to attack anymore but is trying to run away. Matt doesn’t let him, leaning forward to put his hands on the ground as his legs flip over him and both feet slam into bulldozer’s back. The asshole hits the ground hard, barely catching himself on his hands. One rib’s broken and Matt smiles in satisfaction. He lifts the guy’s right knee from his position on his back, grabs his ankle, and _twists,_ tearing ligaments and dislocating the hip. Matt relishes in the sound of bulldozer’s screaming, moving to his head to deliver another punch.

“Stop!” Matt pauses. The voice is from the kid that was standing on the sidelines. _Babbler,_ Matt thinks, would be an apt name. He’s got a gun pointed at them.

“Get away from him! Or-or I'll shoot! I swear.” Matt just smirks.

“You don’t have the balls kid,” His heart’s beating too fast. He’s never actually shot a gun before, Matt knows.

Matt rushes the kid, and the gun goes off. The kid wasn’t aiming, pulling the trigger on accident. Still, he got in a lucky shot and the bullet grazes a deep gouge into Matt’s calf. He hisses in pain. _Foggy’s going to kill me,_ he thinks. He’s in for another lecture about not wearing armor. But the pain sets something alight in him, and he doesn’t stop in his offense. The kid is soon unconscious, face covered in blood with broken cheekbones and a collarbone.

Matt lets out a roar of rage and gets off of the guy. Tiny’s crying silently, pretending to still be unconscious. Bulldozer’s sobbing into the ground where he fell and couldn’t get up, muttering _please_ s and _oh god_ s under his breath. Luckily for them, the jungle is alive with potential prey tonight to feed the hungry maw of Matt’s devil.

* * *

The next few fights are over too quickly. Mostly drunks and amateurs. Still, Matt’s injured and reckless and gets in a few prize trophies in the form of a shallow stab wound in his lower gut, a broken nose (of course, the usual), dislocated shoulder (easily fixed), and a whole host of bruises all along his ribs, face, and spine.

It’s going on 5 AM, and the city’s finally, _finally_ starting to go silent. Matt’s exhausted, but not sated. He wants, no _needs_ just _one_ good fight. Just _one, God, PLEASE._ His devil laughs at him. It sounds like Elektra. He runs, hoping to escape the voice; escape himself.

There’s the sound of a scuffle off the corner of 11th and 39th, and at first Matt’s just about to ignore it. Sounds like just another bar fight. But no, it’s meaner than that. One guy is down, and his opponent just keeps hitting him over and over. He’s gonna kill him if Matt doesn’t intervene.

The cement floor of the small parking lot is liberally sprinkled with the blood of the two men. Matt approaches, loudly to get the attention of the only man left standing. He feels the air currents shift as the man turns around. He smells like he hasn’t showered in days, and his clothes smell like alcohol; days old. None on his breath. He was wrong, this wasn’t some drunken bar fight.

The man rushes him, but Matt’s ready for it and meets him halfway. A baton reaches low to take out the man’s kneecap, but he anticipated it and blocks Matt at the wrist, the other hand curling around Matt’s neck and using his body weight to twist him sideways into a chokehold. Matt rolls out of the hold by flipping with the movement and drops low, kicking the man’s legs out.

He drops hard, but immediately gets back up in one smooth movement and comes charging in again, chest and hands dropped low to knock into Matt’s abdomen. _Military training,_ Matt thinks. _Our Father, who art in Heaven._ His blood sings. _Thanks, man._

Matt knocks the guy aside with his batons, one to the head and the other to his side. He hears a rib crack. _Good._ The man roars in pain but it doesn’t seem to stop him as he gets near again, managing to grab onto Matt’s shirt. A heavy punch to the face follows, followed by two more. His batons drop from his limp hands. The guy is slow, but deals a lot of damage. Matt takes a moment to focus, and catches the guy’s next punch with his right hand. He uses his other to knock at the guy’s elbow so the arm bends and then twists it, sending a high kick to the inside of his upper arm.

There’s a satisfying crack, and Matt’s too distracted by the moment of victory to anticipate the headbutt that crashes into his already broken nose. Matt staggers and falls back. The guy is on him again, kneeling on his chest, his right hand hanging useless at his side but using his left to good measure. Matt feels like he can’t breathe, but twists his legs up around the man’s neck and flips them. They’re lying sideways now, head to feet, the man’s broken arm taking his weight and he _screams._

Matt’s about to break the guy’s knee with one of his batons when he feels an agonizing pain on his own leg. The man’s found the bullet wound and is _digging_ into it with his nails. He kicks at him, getting away. Scrabbles for his batons, coming back in before the guy has a chance to catch his breath.

Matt lets loose, hitting the man in the face a few times, the ribs, kidneys. He puts his weight on one knee, pressing into the man’s groin as he lies on his back on the ground. The man tries to kick out, pull the same trick on Matt that he did earlier, but Matt blocks that by pressing his other knee into the inside of his thigh.

Matt’s screaming his rage as he brings his batons down again, and again, and again. He hears a few more ribs break, a collarbone.

The man stops fighting him, and after a beat, Matt finally gets up off him.

At this point, the man was bleeding from too many wounds to count. His breaths come in harsh struggles.

Matt has his back turned to him, clutching his ribs as he begins to limp away. He hears a harsh laugh coming from the ground.

“Who was it?”

Matt pauses, wondering what the hell this stranger was getting at. He should be yelling and cursing his name, not asking stupid questions. Still, he doesn’t know why but he stops moving away. A morbid curiosity perhaps, some part of him, wishing to be heard? By a stranger?

After a few moments of hesitation, Matt begins to limp away again, only to be stopped once again by the man’s voice.

“My baby girl.” Inhale, exhale. “She was all I got left.”

Matt wants to leave. To ignore this man and his insane ramblings. But something about his voice roots him to the spot. There’s _something_ , something familiar about it that calls to him.

“She was all I got left, and I hurt her. She caught me in one of my episodes. Her eyes, after that. Like she was scared of me.” The man wipes some of his blood on the sleeve of the only working arm he has left. “I took her out for ice cream, after. Promised-promised _never, baby. Never,_ daddy’s sorry, so sorry. I don’t know if she believed me.”

He’s clutching his wrist now, and Matt thinks it’s to try to stop some of the blood flow. But no, he’s digging his nails in. Apparently Matt hasn’t done a good enough job.

“Then this kid came out of nowhere with a gun. Must’ve been only sixteen. And-and the fucking _idiot_ that I was. Thought he wouldn’t do it. Thought I could take him.”

The man falls quiet afterwards, apparently done talking. Matt sits down where he stood, a few feet away from the man and his victim. His broken and aching body protests the movement. His head is dizzy, maybe concussed. Energy leaches out of him as the adrenaline does.

“What did you do to him?”

“I broke his neck.” The man breaks down again, “God, he was only sixteen but-but my baby. My _baby_.”

At any other point in time, this would have refuelled the rage in Matt. But at this moment, all he feels is numb. The world is dark and full of monsters. The man had laid bare his own soul, showing the monster within the man. The man within the monster. Matt felt an odd sort of kinship. An understanding.

“She died in my arms. Taking a stab wound meant for me.” Matt takes off his gloves. He clenches and unclenches his hands and begins to pick at the wounds on his knuckles. It gives him something to do.

“You wanted me to find you.”

“Yes.”

They sit quietly for a bit longer. Each listening to each other’s pained breathing in an odd, bitter sort of peace; the only sort men like them would ever get or deserve. Borne of a morbid understanding of like hurts.

“The second time, she took me with her.” _We could have this forever._

Matt can hear the man’s confusion at his words. But he didn’t ask, and Matt was grateful for that.

“But I woke up.” Matt sighs, wishing that he could wipe at his eyes without pulling up his mask, “I let her down. Let her go alone, again, into the darkness.”

The man coughs, and Matt wonders if he’s going to die. But no, he’s laughing. _At him._

“Man, your girl’s crazy. Makes sense, so’re you.” The man laughs so hard he chokes on his own blood. He spits it out. “The Devil’s girl.”

Instead of getting angry, Matt finds himself morbidly amused.

“Yeah,” Matt pulls up his knees, resting his masked face on them, “Yeah.” _I know you, and you know me._ “We belong together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck. This story just did NOT want to be written. 
> 
> This the best I could do if I wanted to get in with the season. 
> 
> Merry fucking Christmas.


End file.
